Exordium: Story Of A Special
by AmericanJeteye
Summary: This is a the story of a young agent of Special Circumstances. It takes place about 18 years before the events of Uglies, when Specials aren't altered or enhanced quite as much as in Tally's time. I'll be adding a new chapter about once a week.
1. Chapter 1 MESSAGE

**CHAPTER 1: MESSAGE**

My name is Acamar. Technically, I once had a different name, a name which I no longer go by, that I no longer respond to. A name that is no longer me. In fact, I'm not even sure if I can still remember it. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I go only by the name I chose for myself, named after the star under which I was created.

No, not created, for I created myself. Under which I was…..enhanced.

I felt the cold wind whip past my face. I opened my eyes and looked out over the lights of the city, distant, yet always drawing me back, back to where I belonged. _Perfect_, I thought, inhaling the fresh air, for one moment allowing my body to be immersed back into nature, to feel what was now forgotten, and to remember-

I suddenly flinched and went rigid where I was standing on the edge of the cliff, almost losing my balance. I laughed at the thought. Specials didn't lose their balance. I regained control over myself, shaking the dangerous thoughts that had flown so briefly and yet so venomously through my head. It was weird, what nature could do to you. I supposed if I stood out here every night all the time and just breathed in fresh air and listening to the wind, I would become some kind of savage, allowing my primal instincts to take me over. No, it was much safer for me to only take nature in short strides, because sometimes it was so scary the way it made crazy, ridiculous thought spawn and multiply.

Time to get the hell out of here, I thought to myself. I snapped my fingers, and my hoverboard zoomed towards me. I jumped up, deftly catching the board with my feet. It was a custom hoverboard I had designed and built myself, like most of the equipment I used in my work. Being an agent of Special Circumstances wasn't always easy, and the jobs was involved in were helpful if I had a few personalized gadgets with me at all time. Just the right kind of stuff for a guy like me.

I guess you could call me a bit of a loner, which is sort of redundant. A lone Special? Aren't all Specials loners? Well, the answer, surprisingly, is no. Most of the others like to work in teams or small groups, claiming that they get things done more efficiently if they work together. I don't fall for any of that crap. I hadn't really enjoyed working with anyone else ever since I became a Special, which was, what….a year now? A year and a half? Sometime around then, because I was twenty-one now, and I knew that I had become Special before I had turned twenty. I don't know. All I know is once I got my brain lesions taken off my empty-headed pretty brain and got my souped-up Special body, I couldn't wait to get away from everyone and be part of my own Special one-man show, starring yours truly. I did have a few good friends, though. Specials got along all right most of the time, though not always as smoothly as the pretties.

I soared over the city, looking down on the hundred of houses making up the crumblyville suburbs, feeling the breeze scream over my sleek features. I was wearing my normal "stealth" gear, as I called it. Black synthetic leather pants and jacket, and combat boots. I didn't like the whole sneaksuit feel on my skin. I guess you could say I was just a little old school when it came to how I dressed.

I checked the timepiece strapped to my wrist. Almost midnight. The peak hour for wild, bubblehead parties in New Pretty Town. I quickly angled my hoverboard and steered clear of that particular part of the city. I didn't like watching new pretties. Sometimes I felt bad for them because they were just so…..dumb. They did the same things every day. Get up late, wash out their hangovers and eat obscene amounts of food, get ready for that night's party, go to the party, get drunk, maybe get lucky enough to take someone home with you for a little late-night action (though actually, you didn't have to be "lucky" at all to do that, it happened all the time), then finally pass out.

Sounds like a great time, huh?

Not for me. I liked the life of solitude that I led. It was so…quiet. Special Circumstances had done for me what nothing else had ever been able to do. It gave me a purpose, it gave me reason. I guess you could say it gave me piece of mind. Outside the city, the world was so full of crazy, wild things, unnatural things that people didn't have any business being around. By being part of Special Circumstances, I was helping people be safe. Safe in their cozy pretty-minded heads and houses, without any knowledge of what was really out there.

Eventually I reached the river that separated Uglyville from the rest of the city. There were no lights on here. All the little uglies were fast asleep in bed, dreaming of when they'd be turned pretty. Either that or they were out causing mischief like they would practically every night. But Special Circumstances didn't bother with most dumb old ugly pranks and tricks.

I felt my com-link vibrate against my chest from my inside jacket pocket. I brought it out. Figures. A ping from headquarters. Tonight I wasn't assigned anything to do, so technically I was supposed to have the night off, but they would often find "emergencies" or other such crap for us to deal with, mostly jobs that could have been accomplished by Wardens.

I pressed a button on the com-link and brought it up to my face. "Acamar here," I said.

"Downloading position," a robotic voice said on the other end. "Verify….grid plane x 543, plane y 22."

I looked at the position-finder next to my timepiece, which told me where I was in the city. I didn't know why they bothered with all the formalities. As long as I kept the com-link on me, they could tell where I was.

"Position verified," I answered, waiting for the response.

"Agent Acamar," came the lifeless female voice again. Move position immediately to 1375 meters east-north-east of city terminal Omega. Please confirm orders."

I frowned. Outside the city? What did they want me out there for? "Sentinel," I said to the computerized voice through the com-link. That's the name that had been given to the central telecommunations computer system in Special Circumstances. "State reason behind orders."

"Information insufficient to give accurate situation description," replied the voice. "Emergency in area 1375 meters east-north-east of city terminal Omega. Please confirm orders."

"Confirmed," I said, then snapped off the com-link. "Let's go see what's up."

City terminal Omega was on the far outskirts of Crumblyville, so I had to fly all the way back across the city. I punched in the location on my position-finder. Apparently 1375 east-north-east was the site of a small lab outpost, something to do with biotechnology and cybernetics, most likely where research went on that had to do with changing the way people think. The research scientists and doctors in the city were always dreaming up new ways to make Specials more powerful and to keep the bubbleheads happy. Most Specials just had the very basic enhancements that all agents get. The incredibly strong and stable bodies, lightning-quick reflexes, and any brain lesions removed. And of course, the pale white faces and hair as black as night, meant to intimidate non-specials. There were a few experimental Specials in the works, or so I heard, who supposedly had even more enhancements, but I didn't know too much about that.

Speeding as fast as my hoverboard would go, I finally made it across the suburbs and past the city terminal Omega, which was nothing more than a pole stuck in the ground with a few flashing lights on it and an antenna. I was suddenly aware of the silence. Though the city wasn't exactly nosy at night, the dark forest seemed to resonate the quiet even more than it normally did. Softly I slipped in and out through the endless maze of trees, allowing myself to take in the feeling of the aloneness for a moment.

Then my position-finder beeped. I was coming up on whatever it was that was ahead.

I saw the building from about two hundred meters away. It the night, it was just the silhouette of a small, dark box planted in the ground, similar to most Special Circumstances buildings. I drew nearer and, and subconsciously I gripped the hilt of my knife with my hand, the hoverknife, as I called it. With just a quick flip of my right hand, it would spring out of the tight sheath attached to my utility belt and the handle would fall right into my expectant fingers' grasp. It was a solid piece of metal, made from the toughest alloy I could find. It had taken me over a week just to fine-tune the sharper than razor, harder than diamond blade, then even longer to install the microchips and magnetic circuitry that would allow it to suspend in mid-air. Overall, a fine piece of work.

I reached the lab outpost building, keeping to the shadows. Okay, that didn't make sense. It was pitch-black everywhere. The only light came from a few floodlights on the sides of the exterior walls, and from the twinkling stars overhead. The lab had been built in a clearing which may have been natural at some point, but was now paved over. In all, the facility only took about a fifty-by fifty meter area, small enough not to cause any harm to the surrounding environment.

I circled the building once on my hoverboard. I didn't see anything wrong on the outside. Had a gone to wrong place? No, my position-finder told me I was where I was supposed to be. So what was this big emergency? I figured when I got here, I would either see a bunch of flashing lights and alarms sirens, with screaming people running everywhere, or a pile of dead bodies and the signs of a bloody struggle. And if this was an emergency, why was I apparently the only one here. Shouldn't there be other Specials helping out?

I swerved around the side to what looked like the front of building and hopped off my board by a plain, solid-looking door built into the wall. There was no handle and no sign of any sort of keypad or identification slot.

"Open," I said clearly to the door.

The sound of a quiet electric buzzer sounder for a moment, along with the sliding of gears behind the door, then it went quiet. To me, it sounded as though the door would have _liked_ to open for me, but that something was stopping it.

Confused, I powered up my com-link again. "Agent Acamar to headquarters," I said.

"Headquarters here," said the Sentinel.

"Give me someone real to talk to," I said impatiently. "Patch me in to Agent Kilon." Kilon was the head of Special Circumstances enforcement branch, which I was technically a part of. Special Circumstances didn't really have a "commander" or someone officially in charge, because to most people, we don't even exist. But Kilon was the senior Special of all enforcement and combat situation, which was what Special Circumstances was mostly needed for. That's why they call it _Special_ Circumstances. Of the one hundred and fifty or so Specials in the city, about a hundred were part to the enforcement branch. The others were usually either doctors or scientists. So he was the unofficial leader of an unofficial, non-existent organization that also happened to be the most important part in the city.

"Transferring communication…." The Sentinel's voice died out.

I waited a few seconds, then a hard, male voice replaced that of the Sentinel's. "Kilon here," he said. "Acamar, that you?" He always talked in short, quick bursts, hardly ever pausing to string any sort of complex sentences together.

"Yeah, it's me," I answered. "Can you tell me what's going on at this lab outpost outside terminal Omega? I got a call from-"

"I don't understand," Kilon barked, cutting me off. "Where are you….." he paused, and I pictured him bringing up a computer console to find out my exact location. "What are you doing there, Acamar? You're off duty tonight."

"I know. As I was saying, I got a call from the Sentinel about half and hour ago to immediately move to this spot because there was some sort of emergency happening here. So what's it about?"

"There is no emergency anywhere," Kilon said. "I'm looking at all current city information right now. It's all quiet. I don't know what the hell you're up to-

"I'm not up to anything! All I want to know is why I was told to come here when everything's fine, and why I can't even get into this place through the front door."

"Standby," Kilon said. "I'm scanning that lab post now….."

I waited. What was going on? If there wasn't an emergency, why had they told me to move? Unless-

"Acamar!" Kilon's voice was suddenly frantic. "The computer system in that lab post is locked down. I can't get in. Something's going on here. I'll tell a team to meet you at-"

Abruptly, Kilon's voice was sprayed by static as the com-link lost his signal. I whirled around and jumped back up on my hoverboard, all senses alert. Something was happening. First the door, now Kilon tells me the computer in the lab is locked down, and someone just jammed my com-link. I circled the building again. Still nothing. Turning, I flew into the forest, my eyes scanning the dark trees. I brought out my heat scanner, which could detect any live bodies within a thirty-meter radius. On the small screen of the hand-held device, I saw the map come up, accessing my current position. Then it scanned.

A tiny red dot appeared on the screen.

Someone was out there.

No, not out there. Close by.

My eyes narrowed, staring at the red dot blinking on the screen. I leaned, turning my hoverboard and silently flew further into the forest, following to where the scanner said it could detect a heat source. I felt my whole body tense up as I drew closer and closer. Less than ten meters away from the source, I powered down the scanner and stepped off my board, leaning it against a tree.

I crept forward, seeing nothing my blackness and the dim outline of shapes in front of me. No sound of anyone moving nearby. Feeling it was safe enough, I unclipped the flashlight on my utility belt and clicked it on. A stream of white light shot out from its end, illuminating the leafy ground and the bases of tree trunks that surrounded me. I walked steadily, keeping the light held out in front of me. I held it with me left hand ready, if necessary, to instantly flip my right hand over and use my hoverknife.

A light breeze suddenly breathed through the woods, rustling the leaves.

Then I heard a groan.

I spun around, the light from the flashlight darting in every direction. Had I imagined it? No, it had sounded real enough.

"Uuuuuuuhhhh," A low murmur came from in behind me, in the direction where I had been heading. I turned and bolted forward, felt my feet hit something on the ground. I almost tripped, then quickly regained my balance and pointed the light downwards.

I saw the heat source. Or more accurately, I saw the body.

I knelt down and shined the flashlight on the person. It was a man, dressed in all tight black like I was. Comprehension flickered in my head, and I rolled the body over. He groaned again. I shined the light right on his face, into his closed eyes, onto his pale face and his hair colored the darkest shade of black.

A Special.

"Who are you?" I said to him, keeping the light on his face. I suppose that wasn't the most comfortable thing to be doing to him, but this guy was clearly not fully aware of what was going on around him. "What happened?"

"Came…..in…..hovercars," he moaned. "Hacked….the system."

"Who?" I asked, making my voice louder. "What happened. Who came?"

He tried to lift his head up, then it fell back down again. "They're…jamming….you," he said, which was seemingly. "Get…away…they'll…find you."

"Who came?" I asked again, shaking me slightly. "Who are _they_?"

"Get away!" he cried, showing energy for the first time, though is eyes stayed closed. "They're…jamming…"

"I know they're jamming the com-link. Tell-me-"

"No!" he cut me off. "Jamming…the scanners….they're…here."

I froze, snapping the flashlight off. The man groaned again and rolled over. I powered up my heat scanner again. There it was, still the one red dot, blinking furiously now that I was right next to the source. No one else around. He had said they were here. They were jamming the scanners.

Instinctively, I stood up to my full height, turning on the flashlight again and doing a quick 360 to scan the immediate area. Nothing visibly hostile that I could see at the moment, but looks could be deceiving. That much I knew.

Something hard came down on the back of my head, throwing me off balance for a minute. Then something else, a foot most likely, caught me in the back of my leg. I starting crumpling to the ground, but a hand grabbed the back of my jacket and I felt a cold, metallic object press against my skull.

"Don't move, you mutant," growled a low, unfamiliar voice. "Or I'll blow your Special head off."


	2. Chapter 2 FIGHT

**CHAPTER 2: FIGHT**

I felt the gun against me.

I didn't like guns. Never had. They weren't commonly used by Specials most of the time. In my opinion they were rather clumsy instruments only to be used by those who didn't have any real physical prowess or skill. Only in _extreme_ circumstances, when defense of the city was necessary, did Specials ever use guns. Most of the time we relied on ourselves to do the job. I knew how to use one, of course. It had been part of my basic Special combat training to know how to lock, load, and fire guns.

And I also happened to know that they weren't very common. So how this obviously non-special person got one was beyond me at that point.

"Mutant?" I said casually, still on my knees on the ground, with the still-unseen man behind me. "That's not a very nice thing to call someone."

"Shut up," came the growly voice again. "What are you doing out here?"

"I could ask you the same question you know," I replied pleasantly.

"I'm the one asking the questions here!" he yelled.

I smiled. It couldn't be long now. Just a couple more comments would send him over the edge. "Is that so? Well, ask away, my friend. I'm all ears!"

"You got one over there, Cal?" came the voice of another man. Dammit! There were two of them around. This wasn't going to be as easy as I had planned. Not impossible though.

"Yeah," growled the first man, named Cal apparently. "The trap worked. Walked up right next to the first one we caught right here." He kicked that unconscious special on the ground. I gritted my teeth, fighting the flashes of anger in my mind. It was all I could do to stay with my knees on the ground while some creep with a gun kicked a defenseless fellow Special. You will be avenged, I thought to myself.

"A trap, huh?" I said, continuing in a matter-of-fact, unworried tone. "What did you do, jam my heat scanner or something?" I laughed. "Oldest trick in the book, boys."

"Apparently it fooled you, though, didn't it?" said the second man, flashing a bright light in my face. The light from _my_ flashlight, which he'd obviously picked up off the ground. Through the light I caught a glimpse of his face. Pretty, not more than thirty years old at the most.

I pretended to squint. "Hey, watch the light, man! You don't need to-"

"Shut up!" Cal shouted again.

"I suppose I have to say this just to be official," I said flatly. "I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to."

I heard the sound of the blow to the back of my head before I even felt. There we go. Just mouth off to people enough and eventually they'll get so mad that they'll hit you. They always make that one mistake.

As soon as my head was knocked away from the gun, I sprang up on my hands and shot my legs out from behind, sending Cal crumpling to the ground as my boots dug into his stomach. I heard as shot go off behind me as he fell.

The other man with the flashlight lunged at me. I rolled to the side and swung my left out, sweeping his feet and bringing him down. I grabbed the man around the neck and activated my sedation ring, which shot out a needle into the man's back. He instantly went limp in my arms, knocked out by the drug from the ring. I ran over to where Cal lay on the ground, writhing in pain. I had most likely broken a few of ribs with that kick. Just to put him out of his misery, I gave him a shot with the ring and let him sleep Then I pryed the gun from his hand, looked at in disgust, and sliced the barrel off with my hoverknife, rendering it useless. Like I said, I hated guns. The less guns there were in this world, the better.

I searched Cal, looking for any sort of jamming device that might have caused my scanner and com-link to foul up and not work properly. In his pocket I found a small silver metallic rectangle with several buttons and control switches on it. It was made from some ancient material and appeared to be a makeshift electronic device made to create undetectable interference. I had seen devices like that did this sort of thing before, but I had never seen one so outdated and old-looking, like something out of the Rusty era. Who _were_ these guys?

After slicing the jammer device in half, I powered up my heat scanner again. Good, no one around except for me and three unconcious bodies. I turned on my com-link and brought it up to my mouth.

"Agent Acamar to Agent Kilon," I said.

"Transmitting..." came the Sentinel's lifeless voice, which was replaced by Kion's. "Kilon here."

"It's Acamar, sir. I-"

"Acamar!" he exclaimed. He was always interrupting everyone. "What happened? Where are you?"

"Where I was before," I replied. "At the lab post. I found an injured Special lying here in the forest and I was ambushed by two men with guns. I've knocked both of them out and have them here now."

"You were attacked?"

"Yeah. Two mid-pretties, by the looks of them. No idea where they got the weapons or what they're doing out here. What's going on at the lab post?"

"We don't know," Kilon said. "I sent a team of four agents to your position. They'll be there in twenty minutes. Someone's managed to seal out the lab from all computerized or physical entry. Wait until the team arrives, then see what you can do about this situation."

"Kilon, I don't think I should just sit tight until they get here," I protested. "There could be more of them around. I'll try and get into the lab and-"

"No! Just stay there until the team arrives. Kilon out." The com-link went dead.

Well, that wasn't much help. Here I was in the middle of the woods with two unconsious enemies, one injured friend, and a laboratory facility that had been taken over by some unknown malicious entity. And apparently I was just supposed to wait around for four more Specials to show up and then we'd go from there, meanwhile who knows what was going on inside the lab.

I dragged the bodies of the two mid-pretties next to each other and searched them both again, still unable to find any sort of identification or interface items to tell me who they were. No communications devices, no sort of interface rings or cuffs. I brought out my com-link and raised the man called Cal's hand up to the back of the device. Com-links carried by Specials weren't just used for communications. They were miniture computers, capable of storing security information and keeping track of where people had been. Best of all, they could scan fingerprints. I placed is left thumb up against the back of the com-link and allowed time for it to complete get an image of his print. I dropped his hand and then patched myself in the Sentinel.

"Headquarters here, identify, please."

"Agent Acamar, position confirmation not applicable. Override code Omicron-Omicron-eight-seven-zero. Identify current print sample aquired on my com-link."

"Downloading," said the Sentinel. "Please wait.....No matches found. No interface code assigned to print sample aquired on your com-link, Agent Acamar. Suspect foreign entry, unable to ascertain origination of print."

No matches. So they weren't from around here. Another city? Impossible. The nearest one was hundreds of miles away, and peaceful as far as I knew. They all were. No city government would ever dream of becoming involved in another city's affairs.

"Sentinel, log scan and save print sample. Acamar out."

Puzzled by whole situation, I searched the fallen Special still on the ground. I found his com-link and downloaded its database to mine, which would give me all his indentification information and such. Agent Jak Orion, age twenty-two. I looked at his face. He didn't look familar. Though I wasn't the most social person in the world, I knew most Specials that were my age. Jak Orion. Never heard of him. I scanned more information out of his com-link. Apparently he had been assigned to stand guard outside the lab this evening. That was weird. Outposts usually didn't require guards, and when they did the jobs were almost always done by high-tech security drones, not individual Specials.

I checked the last contact he had made on the com-link. All it told me was "encrypted message." Interesting. Who had he been talking to?

The com-link buzzed in my hand. Surprised, I powered it up and said, "Hello?"

"Jak!" came a frantic female voice. "Where are you? Help us!"

"This isn't Jak," I said quickly. "I'm Agent Acamar. I found Jak in the woods and I'm on his com-link. Who is this?"

"We're in the lab!" the woman yelled. "We can't contact anyone! They've got us blocked in here! Help us!"

"I can't get in the lab, it's locked out." For a moment, I thought I heard here reply, but then realized that the message had endend. "Call back," I said to the com-link. It beeped and tried to established contact, but nothing happened. Whoever I had just spoken to had either turned off their com-link, or someone else had taken it from them and destroyed it.

A low hum came from behind me. I turned, keeping silent and looking into the dark forest. The noise grew lounder, solidifying into a constant dull roar. Lights appeared up ahead.

Hovercars.

Was it the team of Specials Kilon had sent to help me? No, they would have come from the direction of the city, and on hoverboards, not in cars. Only one other explanation remained.

More enemies.

I snapped my fingers, my hoverboard springing to life and zooming under my feet. For a split second I looked down at the unconsious Special, the mysterious Jak Orion, debating what to do with him, then I deftly scooped him up into my strong arms zoomed ahead.

Carrying someone on a hoverboard isn't the easiest thing in the world. In fact, it's pretty hard. I'd only done it once, back in my Ugly days when one of my friends had fallen off their board and had gone crashing into a tree trunk. He hadn't been wearing a bungee jacket, the idiot. Anyway, as far as I could remember, I had ended up carrying him back with me to the hospital on my board. It nearly made me sick to bring that old memory to the front of my mind. I had hated those days, and I tried my best to forget them.

I looked behind me. They were getting closer, less than three hundred feet now. I started to turn to the side and angle back towards the lab when a sharp, cracking sound split monotonous hum of the cars. Dammit! Whoever these guys were, they had guns, too. Forget going back to lab then. I'd be a sitting duck in the clearing. My best hiding place was in the darkness of the forest.

I swerved to avoid a rather large tree and plunged downward. Another shot rang out. All right then, if you want to play rough, bring it on! I lowered the limp body of Jak Orion next to a tree, propping him up against the trunk. "Stay safe," I whispered, then flew back upwards. If I was going to have to deal with two hovercars, I didn't want a fellow Special getting hurt by any collateral damage.

The two cars were still following me. For half a second, one of them even got me with their searchlight, which was followed by another gunshot. I zoomed in and out of the foliage, leading the two cars aways from the lab and back deeper into the woods.

I already had a plan in mind. I'd dealt with stuff like this before in Special Circumstances combat training, and knew just what to do. As soon as I was far enough ahead of the cars, I turned downwards and stopped my board just before it scaped the ground. I hopped off and crouched down low behind a fallen tree, trying to look as inconspicious as possible. Once on the ground, I flipped my right hand over with one quick movement, and my hoverknife sprang out of its sheath and into my grasp. I was ready.

I heard the roar of the two cars as they came closer. They were flying low, maybe thirty feet or so off the ground, probably hoping to catch me if I tried to pull a fast one and duck down onto the surface, like I had already done. Too late, guys, I thought.

I waited until the car in the lead was almost over my head, then I snapped my fingers and hopped on the board. The first car's roared over me, it's lights scanning in every direction and more gunshots coming from it. What the hell did they think they were shooting at? Morons. I turned and looked back. The second car was right behind it, and that's what I as waiting for.

Closer......closer.......right....NOW!

I kicked my hoverboard down and it soared upwards at maximum speed, propelling my body through the air as though I had been released by a huge elastic band. I rocketed into the sky. At Exactly at the same height as the passing car, I leaped from the hoverboard and grabbed the back of the open-capsule vehicled. It wasn't a very big vessel, fifteen feet long or so, big enough to hold a few passengers, not much more.

A face turned from the seat in front of me and gazed at me in shocked horror. Before he could even comprehend what had happened, I knocked him in the face with the blunt end of the knife, then leaped over the back of the car, grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck, pulled him out of the seat and threw him over the side. He screamed as he fell through the night. I smiled in grim satisfaction.

The driver had only a few seconds to realize what was happening before I slid into the seat beside him and pressed the knife up to his throat. "Keep driving," I ordered. "Make any sudden movements and I'll cut your neck open and you'll leave one hell of a bloody mess on the nice interior of your car. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to."

I could see the fear in his eyes. He was a mid-pretty, just like the all the enemies I had encountered. This was turning into one strange night. "W-who are you" he managed to stammer out.

"Don't ask questions, that's a very easy way to die with someone like me holding a knife to your throat." I looked ahead of us, the wind past my face as we sped through the forest. The other hovercar was nowhere in sight. "Drive back to the lab in clearing." His hands didn't move on the half-wheel controller. "Now! Move!"

A gunshot sounded behind me, and I was suddenly blinded by an intense light behind me. I winced as the first hovercar roared over us, less than a few feet from my head. I was suddenly thrown against the side of the seat as the hovercar lurched and rolled to side. I saw the driver take advantage of the temporary distration to cut the wheel all the way right, spinning the car into a spiraling dowards crash course. I reached out with my one free hand and knife, groping the smooth surface of the car, despeartly trying to find a handhold. I felt myself slipping out of the seat as the car turned on its side.

Then it gave one final shake and I toppled head over heels off the car, speeding relentlessley to the hard ground below me.


End file.
